Following our noses

This is another attempt at writing when I feel like it instead of forcing myself to recall where we've been and what we did there.

As a bit of background I scribbled this in my Captain America notebook given to me by CanaDan trying not to perspire too much as Cath sat next to me reading up on our next destination positively soaking up the heat!! We were sat in the bus station to the east of Bangkok waiting to board our midnight charriot bound for Trat and eventually (after a taxi and ferry) Koh Chang.

This will be our first taste of Thai island life and I am very much looking forward to settling down for a couple of days. I know there won't be much sympathy forthcoming but before our recnet stop in Chiang Mai we hadn't been in one place longer than a couple of nights...funny how you start longing for a nice cup of tea and a quiet sit down...all of this moving however is helping us develop shoulders of steel.

We chose Koh Chang following some good tips from Aiden in HK and a couple we met trekking, we are also for the first time just going to turn up somewhere with directions of "turn right on the beach, you can't go wrong" as a guide to our night's accomodation...if this goes wrong we could have sandy pillows!!! It is about time really as we have relied heavily on a great little website called Hostelworld to find and book ahead into guesthouses and hostels. Sorry if this shatters any illusions but this has meant that most of the places we have stayed in have had aircon, ensuite and at least a couple of cannels of cable TV but we have paid an acceptable premium both financially and spotantaity-ly...we are now ready to be a bit more adventurous!!

On that note I completed a first the other night during our trek in Chiang Mai. I caught, killed and cooked my own supper!!! I think Cath covered it but just to make sure you all realise how rugged I have become - I was having a quiet beer after a pleasant couple of hrs walk when I heard a comotion down by the fire that some of the villagers were stoking so being the inquisitive chap I am I strolled down to to ceck it out. When I got there I found the owner of the hut we were staying in knocking a couple of biys of wood together and 6 or 7 kids excitedly jumping up and down trying to catch the huge cicadas that were attracted by the noise and flames. I proved to be a great help to their cause as those bugs needed somewhere to land and my comparatively large torse was utilised as an insect helipad for the excited bugs...all I had to do then was grab them and resit the tickling until we got to the cooking phase - well putting them in the base of the fire until the popped. I was quite chuffed with our night's work when gobbling down the crunchy, chicken flavoured beastie although it didn't stop my wolfing down more curry when it was offered later!